Excerpt from Lower Umpqua d104s and Notes on the Kusan Dialects The following texts were collected on the Siletz Reser vation, Oregon, during March and April, 1911, in con junction with an investigation of the Lower Umpqua language, carried on under the joint auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology and of Columbia University. With the exception of the last tale (no. Which was narrated in English by Louis Smith, a full-blooded Lower Umpqua Indian, all texts were obtained from William Smith, an Alsea Indian, who at an early age had gained a knowledge of the Lower Umpqua language, and from his wife, Louisa Smith, the oldest member of the Lower Umpqua tribe, a tribe now practically extinct. The collection of these texts was accomplished under great difficulties, which will largely account for the meagre number of myths and tales contained in them. Louisa's advanced age rendered her practically useless as a narrator. Her memory of old traditions was almost entirely gone, and she had lost the faculty of relating facts coherently and in consecutive order. Besides, her narratives, such as could be obtained, were too much interspersed with Chinook jargon, so that, after having obtained from her part of story No. 18 and an account of her childhood (no.

I was forced to resort to her husband's services as a narrator. Since he was not familiar with the traditions of the Lower Umpqua Indians, the following procedure had to be adopted. He was asked to obtain from his wife, through the medium of Chinook jargon, such stories, I - col. Univ. Contrib. Anthrop. Vol. Iv.

and in such form, as she could remember, and to retell them to me in English. I then arranged the facts in what seemed to be the most likely consecutive order, whereupon William was instructed to dictate these facts in the Lower Umpqua language, a task which at times was too much for his limited intelligence. He too often lost the trend of the story, and wandered away from the subject-matter, leaving out the most important details, and failing to mention the subjects and objects involved in a certain myth. Whenever unable to continue a thought, he resorted to unnecessary repetitions, so that most of the texts that make up this collection seem to be lacking in vividness of description and continuity of thought. To be sure, in extenuation of William's shortcomings as a nar rator, it must be borne in mind that the Lower Umpqua language was not his native tongue. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.

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